Monday, April 6, 2009

I had fun creating my very first name pendant. It's clearly far from perfect. I will need to practice some more to get the letters even and level. Part of the problem was due to the soft copper wire I used. Letter writing is best done with half-hard or even full hard wire because the letters once formed are more likely to stay in place. I used 22G but 20 G is also common. If you are trying out with copper, start with the 20G as it is stiffer. Whether you use round or square wire seems to be a matter of personal preference.

I also quickly learned to keep the letter size such that I could still form the loops with the round nose pliers. You can see I didn't quite hide the second wire behind the first with the stem of the P and the curve of the A but that would be the general aim in situations like that.

I got started with letter writing with the help of the wonderful tutorials written by Maggie Stanton (now defunct website) who apparently did it initially for the people at the Jewelry Making Forum of About.com.

The name pendant she made on the left shows how it really should be done! Maggie only wrote the tutorials for nine names but you can probably figure other letters out like I had to do with P and perhaps put in your own variations.

Kathy Canuel does her name writing in square wire and again, she has a refreshing take on how the name is made into a pendant.

There is also another enterprising wire artisan, Dave Maskin of wirenames.com who works with 14G aluminium wire. He creates 3-D wire names which can stand up. His is an entertainment business where he makes them at parties and functions. He is so fast, he can create 40-50 names an hour! A good example of practice makes perfect. He also sells names via his website.

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You could say Pearl was born to be a jewelry designer with a name like that! She is the author of The Beading Gem's Journal now simply called The Beading Gem, a popular jewelry making, inspirational and how-to website. Subscribe for your daily dose of tips and tutorials and more

It's interesting to see how each style is so different and each one truly lovely. I've watched wire artists fashion jewelry using people's names and was mesmerized by how smoothly and quickly they changed a straight piece of wire into a very personalized piece of wearable art. 40 to 50 names an hour! Dave Maskin's hands must move so quickly that they're just a blur.